1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a human interface system for use with a plurality of computers connected through a distributed network.
2. Description of the Related Art
A human interface for computer systems (hereinafter, referred to as a human interface system) has been developed mainly with a view to supporting various activities in a single independent computer. Recently, various computer tools have been readily available. They include a tool that places multiple windows on a bit map display and processes multiple jobs in parallel, a tool that allows file creation and deletion by means of a graphical user interface, and a tool that provides data management using a spread sheet.
The popularization of computer networks enables various services including electronic mail through local area networks or wide area networks.
For such human interface systems, various computer tools are modeled according to a concept termed what is called desk top metaphor. Such human interface systems make it easy for the user to access and operate various conventional single-computer tools. Those tools are generally used by the user only after the user has learned their functions and how to operate them. Services handled by the computer are becoming enormous. Actually, the user, carrying out his work or duties, often looks for and refers to data that he does not know where it is, or accesses various computer services which he uses less frequently. Such actions, however, are difficult to carry out in the framework of a conventional human interface.
In such a human interface system, telephone, electronic mail, talk or the like are widely used as systems that allow exchange of messages between terminals connected through a network. In the existing systems, however, unimportant telephone calls sometimes interrupt urgent work or important electronic mails are often left unread for a long time. This is because the system cannot appreciate the working conditions on the called party side as well as the importance of the message the calling party has intended to give and consequently can provide neither the called party nor the calling party with messages with good timing.
The above conventional human interface system cannot transmit messages with appropriate timing according to their importance in such a manner that important messages of great urgency are presented to the called party even if he is at work, whereas messages of less urgency are presented when the called party is not busy.
Similarly, office automation has been popularized remarkably. For example, a work station system has been developed which has a work station with a computer system function installed on each user's desk and allows them to connect to each other and a host computer via a network to communicate with one another.
In such a work station system, when the user wants to get desired information while continuing his work on his work station, he inquires of the user at another work station via the network or calls the host computer and reads the desired information from a data base.
The user at each work station positively inquires of another work station or the host computer in anticipation of getting desired information.
This means that the user cannot get what he wants unless he inquires positively. For this reason, even when acquiring information of less importance, not directly related to the tasks at his work station, the user has to stop what he is doing at his work station temporarily to operate for the acquisition of information, which makes it a troublesome job to get information.
As described above, with the conventional work station system, since the user at each work station cannot get information unless he inquires positively of another work station or the host computer, he has to suspend what he is doing at his work station each time he tries to get information, thus making it a bothersome job to acquire information.
As the processing capability of the computer is expanding, various application programs have been developed for use on such increasingly powerful computers. Such application programs include a text-file tool, a graphic tool, a spreadsheet tool, electronic mail, a schedule management tool, and a database retrieving tool. The computer is not merely a high-speed computing machine but is now serving as a machine which provides an environment that efficiently supports various intellectual activities.
When the user tries to do work, he sometimes spends a lot of time in getting the work done without using the computer or creates a new program even if a function supporting the work is prepared on the computer, because he does not know it. In addition, although the user knows that there is a function he wants on the computer, he cannot use the function after all, because he does not know how to use it.
To solve such problems, there is provided an operating environment where the functions prepared on the computer appear on the screen in the form of menus or icons and are each selected by a pointing device such as a mouse to start each function. With such menu or icon representation, however, there is a limit on what is displayed on the computer screen. Thus, as the number of application programs increases, there may be a case where their menu cannot be displayed on a single screen. To overcome this problem, the menu is made hierarchical or one screen scrolls to another according to the menu.
When the number of application programs has reached approximately 1000, however, the user has to spend a lot of time and labor in searching the menu or icons for the desired function. Therefore, such an arrangement is also difficult to use.
When each type of application program has its own manual, each manual can be stored previously on the computer. In this case, a system can be considered which enables retrieving of a desired function from the manual by specifying a particular Key word, using full-text retrieving techniques.
When the desired application program does not exist on the computer, the manual on the program does not exist as a matter of course, so that the manual cannot be retrieved. Further, even if the desired application program exists, there may be a case where it cannot be retrieved because there is no explanatory text such as a manual on the program. In the case of old computer systems, the user knows what kinds of programs are on the computer only after he asks people around him.
Concerning human interface systems, companies have been introducing electronic conference systems, which allow persons far away from each other to exchange views by means of telephones, television, work stations, etc.
In the electronic conference system, a television camera is prepared for each meeting place where participants have gathered and the scene of the meeting place from each camera is switched so as to create an atmosphere where participants feel as if they were discussing in the same place, by displaying the face of the person now expressing his opinion on the screen, for example.
With such an electronic conference system, however, the meeting proceeds while the participants are looking at a close-up of the person expressing his opinion on the TV screen, which is different in atmosphere from a meeting where the individual participants actually sit across a conference table from each other and exchange their views, with the result that they are liable to have an awkward feeling which would impair a smooth progress of the meeting.